On 2 October, Piyush Goyal, serving as Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, put forward the position that attaching conditions to Most-Favoured-Nation treatment — a practice pursued by certain WTO members — runs counter to what India is prepared to accept within the organisation's framework. Those remarks were delivered during the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting session.

Writing on X, Goyal described the MFN principle as a mechanism for placing traders of every scale on equal contractual footing. At the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting session centred on the Most-Favoured-Nation Principle, he put forward the position that MFN treatment ensures every trading partner — regardless of size — operates under identical terms, and that conditioning such treatment on obligations selected by particular WTO members was a position India could not endorse.

Goyal, speaking at the close of the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, put forward the view that tackling trade distortions and excess capacity in line with WTO rules would be a constructive path, while also noting that reinforcing the multilateral trading system could support confidence, predictability, and inclusiveness. Both positions reflect his stated perspective.

Speaking at a panel focused on overcapacity and output levels, he argued that any response to distortions in the marketplace be grounded in multilateral frameworks rather than pursued through unilateral means. Addressing what he described as a shared concern among numerous members, Goyal pointed to subsidies and pricing practices in certain economies that, in his view, distort trade flows and risk undercutting fair market competition.

Trade remedy tools aligned with WTO rules — among them anti-dumping levies and countervailing duties, each grounded in evidentiary findings and open to judicial challenge — were put forward by him as the appropriate response to those concerns.

On the manufacturing question, Goyal drew a distinction between India's position and the overcapacity concerns raised by the G20 Presidency, pointing out that a population of 1.4 billion people underpins an economy built around internal consumption rather than export-driven production surpluses. According to his stated view, factory output by itself raises no particular concern — difficulties arise only when undisclosed government subsidies cause production to concentrate in specific geographic areas.

The Minister characterised supply-chain diversification as a legitimate goal while drawing a distinction between pursuing that aim and using it as a pretext to bypass WTO commitments or transfer the burden of economic restructuring onto lower-income countries that still require policy space to develop their own industrial base.

Addressing the question of revisions to the Most Favoured Nation principle, Goyal put forward the position that fair and non-preferential conditions form the foundation on which the country's trade relationships rest. Under his characterisation, the Most-Favoured-Nation principle is designed to guarantee that smaller trading partners can negotiate on the same footing as the largest players at the table.

Among the positions he put forward, Goyal urged that the two-tier mechanism for resolving trade disputes be reinstated and that preferential treatment for nations at earlier stages of economic development be maintained.

On the question of compelled labour within international supply chains, Goyal pointed to Article 23 of the Constitution as the foundation for a firm national stance against the practice. Ratification of ILO Conventions 29 and 105 featured among the statement's notable disclosures, as did an amendment to the Foreign Trade Policy — carried out in July 2026 — that closed the door to imports tied to forced labour.